sell to his base first. if the president had his base lined up to do chain cpi and some gradual over 30 years increase in the medicare age limit, boy, i think it would be easy to get revenue out of the republicans. infinitely easier, and i think we could have a big deal which mike and i agree, the big deal if we announced it would cause the economy to explode. exactly. it would explode. but the president doesn t stand up to his base. he attacks republicans who have been so dumb politically over the past four years that they re perfect straw men. and that s fine. it s great for him politically, but it doesn t get us any closer to a deal. let me ask you a question, governor. before you were governor, you had another executive position, your first executive position, you were mayor of philadelphia. you came into the mayoralty, and the city was in tough shape as a lot of cities are today. what did you do when you got in there?
the army to serve in world war ii. and he returned home, he began climbing the political ladder. a life-long democrat who served on new york city council, then three terms in the congress. and in 1977, he became new york s 105th mayor, a job koch often said he wanted for life. he was credited with saving the city from disaster. he was mayor for 12 years that were spirited, irreverent, and fairly, if ever, boring. in 1982, he lost the democratic primary for governor to long-time rival, mario cuomo. i promised i would never run for governor again. and you promised that before. right. reporter: in 1989, he lost his bid for an unprecedented fourth term as mayor to david dinkins, who became new york s first african-american mayor. i want you not to feel sorry for me. believe me, there is a life after the mayoralty.
city s first african-american mayor. don t feel sorry for me. believe me, there is a life after the mayoralty. reporter: he never married or had children. after leaving office, koch endured a stroke, heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery and wrote more than a dozen books, became an enthusiastic twitter user and came in to the homes of many americans as the judge on the people s court. judgment for the plaintiff. reporter: one former new york mayor said he wouldn t wish the position on his worst enemy. but koch said it s the greatest job anyone could ever have. that was ron allen reporting for us. and we ll be right back. sometimes what we suffer from
i want you not to feel sorry for me. believe me. there is a life after the mayoralty. no music while i m gone! so today, we dedicate the back spin to him. a couple of clips there we saw sort of told an interesting part of the story. there he was, 1983. snl. height of the popularity. 1989, conceding the democratic primary. saying there s life after the mayoralty and yes for 23 years he managed to retain if not enhance his standing in sort of the new york city political world and in just sort of the world of media and culture and politics and hosting the people s court in that clip in 1997. when i think of ed koch and his legacy, i think of a few things. one is the interesting transition to get power and what it said about the evolution of new york city and of america. this guy was a real liberal reformer from greenwich village.
if i might add, this man is under investigation, he has his own problems with federal authorities, he s under investigation and he was a witness in the blagojevich case. which is all the more reason to view with some skepticism what he says. and i do think this allegation that jackson offered to raise $6 million for blagojevich in return for the senate seat is kind of absurd on its face. jesse jackson can t snap his fingers and raise $6 million. he doesn t have $6 million. i don t think that is going to go anywhere. but buying tickets for this woman, potentially a girlfriend, that very much fits within the definition of gift under the congressional rules, and it does seem to be a flat violation of the congressional gift ban, particularly since he didn t report it. that could certainly generate an ethics committee investigation, a censure. mostly it s a political embarrassment that will limit jesse jackson s political career at a time when the mayoralty is